A Baby at Last! A Couple's Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant

June 16, 2010

Fertility experts Dr. Zev Rosenwaks and Dr. Marc Goldstein of Weill Cornell Medical Center offer advice to men and women confronting infertility in their new book "A Baby at Last! The Couple's Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant--from cutting-edge treatments to common sense wisdom."

Handout

Fertility experts Dr. Zev Rosenwaks and Dr. Marc Goldstein of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center offer advice to men and women confronting infertility in their new book "A Baby at Last! The Couple's Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant--from cutting-edge treatments to common sense wisdom."

Rosenwaks is the director of the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical. Goldstein is the director ofthe Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and Microsurgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Read an excerpt of the book below, and then head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.

Chapter 1

A Couple's Guide to Getting Pregnant

You Are Not Alone: When to Seek Help

Claire, a thirty-seven-year-old designer, had tried unsuccessfully to have a baby
for a year and a half before she went to see her gynecologist. Her doctor found
she had an incompetent cervix, which he corrected surgically. Six months later, her
husband, Jeff, a thirty-eight-year-old salesman, went to a urologist, who found Jeff
had a very low sperm count and a cyst on one testicle. Claire did some research
on the Internet into hospitals and doctors. An oncologist friend suggested they
go to Weill Cornell, where a radiologist told them that Jeff's cyst was benign, but
Dr. Goldstein found that Jeff had varicoceles (varicose veins in the scrotum) affecting
both testicles. Microsurgery repaired the varicoceles, but Jeff's sperm count
remained very low, so they decided to try an in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure
with Dr. Rosenwaks.

For the first IVF attempt, three of Claire's eggs were fertilized with Jeff's
sperm and transferred into her uterus, but none progressed to a pregnancy. A few
months later, Jeff had better-quality sperm surgically removed from his testicles,
and those sperm were used to fertilize ten of Claire's eggs. Dr. Rosenwaks transferred
four healthy embryos.

"I had prepared myself for the possibility that it wouldn't work," says Claire.

"Jeff and I talked a lot during the two-week wait about what we would do if
we got bad news. We also met with a counselor at Weill Cornell, who made the
process easier to deal with." When they received word that Claire was pregnant, "I
couldn't believe it," says Jeff. "I'll never forget that call." Their daughter, Connie,
is now eighteen months old.

Fertility is, on the face of things, a very simple process. It's a matter of
getting the sperm and egg together. But the variables are plentiful, and as
many couples find, it's easy for something to go wrong. You need a good quality
egg and properly functioning sperm. You need enough sperm to be
deposited where it's supposed to be. The sperm has to be strong enough to
swim up the female reproductive tract through the fallopian tube to reach
the egg to fertilize it. The fallopian tube has to be normal to be able to
pick up the fertilized egg and deliver it to the uterus so it can develop fully.
The woman's brain also needs to function properly, so that the pituitary
gland produces adequate amounts of hormones necessary to foster follicle
and egg development in the ovary. In turn the ovary, under the influence
of the pituitary gland, must produce the critical hormones—estrogen and
progesterone—necessary to promote uterine lining development and support
for the implantation of the fertilized egg.